thatgirl006 Dance Review: Triskelion Arts Split Bill - Elisa Monte Dance + Marcos Duran Performance Group

Sunday, September 27, 2015

 by Jennifer Newman

Triskelion Arts' Split Bill, a series aimed at supporting emerging and mid-career artists by providing a platform to transition from a showcase to a full-evening length work, recently presented Elisa Monte Dance and Marcos Duran Performance Group in an excellent illustration of its mission.

Recently appointed Artistic Director of the 35-year-old dance company, Elisa Monte Dance, Tiffany Rea-Fisher choreographed because i am (lower case title as written in the program) an episodic piece highlighting four Elisa Monte Dance company members.  Younger company, Marcos Duran Performance Group brought a collective of dancers to perform WORLDS AND PLATEAUS (uppercase title as written in the program).  In this shared bill both companies explored interiority and exteriority from distinct aesthetic perspectives exposing just as distinct relationships to dance and the body (and the use of upper and lower case letters in piece titles), highlighting the effect that experiencing dance can have on both the performer and the viewer. 

Tiffany Rea-Fisher is an exuberant choreographer.  Young, well-trained bodies and limbs were on full display in a never-ending cascade of bends, twists, and extensions. Rea-Fisher has a confident hand and showcases her dancers undeniable talents.  What do we share and what do we keep to ourselves are the questions the piece seems to be asking. It is at its most successful when instead of telegraphing self-conscious characterizations, Rae-Fisher lets the movement speak for itself.  

In the opening trio, two men and one woman stay in constant contact, untangling and re-tangling their bodies. Like a team-building exercise where a group is asked to form a tight clump, find and grasp random hands, and then figure out how to form a circle without letting go of hands. Mesmerizing to watch, the shapes created by the three bodies contracted and expanded, freezing briefly in moments of relief with a long limb extended or in the holding of one dancer by the other two.  One dancer cannot exist without the others as if to say we are never alone even when we are.  

The highlight of the piece however, was a duet between two women.  Performed impeccably, it was like watching a person struggle with her shadow. It is always there, sometimes a hindrance but undeniably a part of who we are. It was the least presentational and therefore the most affecting.  The relationship between the women was at the center and their attention to one another kept the focus there.  The music was the most abstract of the evening and lent a sparseness and crystalline clarity to the seeping separation and re-merging of the two bodies. 

The two male solos were, although executed beautifully, the most aware of the act of performance.  Incongruous to the trio and the duet, which operated in a universe where the audience was of no consequence, the male soloists played characters of sorts, which left me more confused than moved.  The first solo was a man struggling with voices in his head, he was angry at the world.  The second soloist performed as an untrustworthy maitre d’ or master of ceremonies welcoming us into his sinister world.  What did the audience represent to these characters?  In each case the audience was implicated in some way but what that was, remained unclear.

Marcos Duran is a choreographer interested in how movement is affected by emotional landscapes.  In this selection, interiority is privileged over exteriority.  A post-apocalyptic dystopian yet communal universe where save for one moment when a dancer asked for a high-five from an audience member, there was no sense that the dancers needed the presence of an audience to do what they did. But even that moment seemed to some out of a spontaneous reaction, or necessity, of the performer.  Offering a fascinating juxtaposition to Elisa Monte Dance the Marcos Duran Performance Group is comprised of a variety of body types, some more trained than others, all receiving equal value on the stage.

Through exhaustive and almost ritualistic repetition, we watch the performers go from self-contained to raw and exposed. Even if I did not know what each dancer was experiencing or what the relationships were between them, their commitment to internal transformation allowed for whatever change was happening to be transmitted outwardly. Every so often Mr. Duran, appearing in a spotlight downstage right, would dance a solo as if in his room alone dancing for the pleasure of it.

During the performance, I began to think about why we go to watch dance, theater or performances of any kind. What do we go to see performance for but to be moved and then, what is it exactly that moves us?  Seeing someone push oneself to an extreme is perhaps the most thrilling aspect of live performance.  We want to see our internal lives exposed via the medium of the artist on stage allowing a shared experience of transformation and understanding.  This tension at the threshold between safety and peril of showing ourselves to one another is where the beauty lies.  What is most difficult for very well trained dancers is exactly this. When everything seems effortless it can seem safe and safe prevents us from true communion. To extend past this comfort zone is show us the inseparability of the grotesque and the sublime, the reason we attend this church we call the theater.

A New York-based dance and theatre artist, Jennifer has worked with Franco Dragone, Julie Taymor, Donald Byrd, David Rousseve, Ronald K. Brown, Michael Jackson, The Radio City Rockettes, and has performed on Broadway in Saturday Night Fever and Disney’s The Lion King. As a director and choreographer her theatre work includes:Three Women, by Patterson, Loring, and Zainabu; The Children, by Phillip Howze; Bull Rusher, by Eisa Davis; Woman Bomb, by Ivana Sajko; and October in the Chair, adapted from short stoierries by Neil Gaiman. She is currently touring her solo performance, The Geneva Project, an interdisciplinary and immersive dance work directed by Charlotte Brathwaite.

Having studied at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and The American Dance Festival she holds a BA in Dance from UCLA and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.  Jennifer has been an artist in residence at Yale University, Central Connecticut State University, The Field, Mabou Mines, Baryshnikov Arts Center, 651 Arts, and Sisters Academy. She is currently on faculty at Central Connecticut State University.

Split Bill image photo credits: MMDC/Mari Meade by Eric Bandiero, Chris Herde and Dancers by Chris Herde, Elisa Monte Dance by Pascal Sonnet, Marcos Duran Performance Group by Marcos Duran